


Goldfin

by wallyamorous (roseyjakes)



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merfolk, Inspired by the Little Mermaid, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-10 09:41:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5580727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseyjakes/pseuds/wallyamorous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Silence! If you had cheated only once, and for that purpose only, then this judge and jury may have reconsidered our judgement. But you have bet on yourself, used your, dare I say, </i>friendship<i>, with our Majesty for personal gain, and have recently started to throw games purely to gain wealth and power. You, Carteer, are a liar, a thief, and an abuser of the power bestowed on you for what we once percieved as a wealth of bravery and integrity. Worst of all, you have toyed with the feelings of our Queen and someone you called friend. If it was my choice, you would work the rest of your miserable life until your muscles went ragged and your bones turned to dust, but the law states that what you have done sentences you to only five years. May they be painful and desolate."</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>The gavel banged, rang out sharp and high, rung in his ears. Tears ran down his cheeks. But he deserved it. He had pleaded guilty, because he was. It didn't make the words sting any less.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Goldfin

_"For treason against the crown and unlawful gambling practices, you, Mikail Jon Carteer, are hereby sentenced to five years hard labor in the trenches."_

_A broken sob._

_"Please-- I only did it to pay for my mother's treatment! I never--"_

_"Silence! If you had cheated only once, and for that purpose only, then this judge and jury may have reconsidered our judgement. But you have bet on yourself, used your, dare I say,_ friendship _, with our Majesty for personal gain, and have recently started to throw games purely to gain wealth and power. You, Carteer, are a liar, a thief, and an abuser of the power bestowed on you for what we once percieved as a wealth of bravery and integrity. Worst of all, you have toyed with the feelings of our Queen and someone you called friend. If it was my choice, you would work the rest of your miserable life until your muscles went ragged and your bones turned to dust, but the law states that what you have done sentences you to only five years. May they be painful and desolate."_

_The gavel banged, rang out sharp and high, rung in his ears. Tears ran down his cheeks. But he deserved it. He had pleaded guilty, because he was. It didn't make the words sting any less._

_"How could you Mikail? Gambling destroyed your father, and now you?"_

_"You should be ashamed!"_

_"Mikail---"_

_"Witless fool."_

_"Mikail."_

_"Should be locked up, throw away the key."_

_"--_ Mikail! _"_

\---

"Are you sure all that sighing is entirely necessary, sir?"

Booster glanced wearily at Skeets from between his fingers. Bless his little fishy heart, the little guy was about the only thing going for him right now.

"You bet it is Skeets. All I've _got_ now is the right to sigh as much as I like."

"And me."

"And you. Me, myself, my sighs, and Skeets the fish. My past self would never believe it." Booster sighed again, drawing it out for effect, then rested his chin on his hand and stared tiredly out to land. He always got like this, a little, thinking about the past. His past, his mistakes, the reason he had one of the lousiest jobs in all merfolk-dom.

"Well, better get back to work, huh? Swim back and forth down the completely silent shoreline, see absolutely nothing interesting, then die of boredom."

"That sounds like the best course of action, sir, unless you wish to partake in a couple more sighs before meeting your untimely demise at the hands of your own boredom," Skeets replied dryly, as snarky as ever. Maybe he was rubbing off on Skeets, and that didn't forbode well.

"Unless these sighs can turn back time, I think I've 'partaken' in one too many," Booster responded, sliding smoothly of the rock and getting ready for another coast perimeter check, Skeets swimming by his side. But not before staring wistfully out to shore, towards the one source of light, a human mansion overlooking the water.

Booster had always had a certain amount of fascination for the human world. Before, it was because of their strange customs and their dress, the fact that they were able to build a society with no magical help, though it left them sadly behind when it came to technology. Their lack of magic-infused technology gave their looks and society a kind of rustic and charmingly out-dated look. Vintage wasn't strong enough a word, but ancient was pushing it. Quaint, maybe?

Now his fascination had different roots. Imagine it: a place where absolutely no one knew of his failures and would only know his sure successes! He had always been told he was attractive and he was certainly fit enough. He could gain the love of the court and the humans of that world. Being half siren gave you certain benefits when it came to charming humans. He just wouldn't be using his innate charm to catch a meal. Which reminded him that he was hungry enough to eat a seahorse platter. Ugh.

He could never go to the human world, though. Reason one being his lack of legs (which made it difficult to move around) and his lovely gills, webbed hands, and frilly little fins, (which were all very handsome he'd been told, but Booster had a feeling they would just creep out humans). Sure, the Library was full of spell teaching-orbs, but only mystic mermages were allowed to touch those teaching-orbs. He had gone to jail too recently for him to try it again so soon.

So he kept on moving, Skeets at his side, letting his self-pity swallow him whole. There wasn't much else to do, anyway.

\- - -

Booster wasn't completely sure what drew him to the shore the next day. Okay, that was a lie. His mood was pretty much in shambles, and when his mood was in shambles, he tended to get destructive. Maybe it was his siren ancestory calling him to his ancient heritage of slamming ships against the rocks, eating the humans who jumped overboard, and overall just giving his fish-tailed friends a bad rap.

Sirens didn't always sing just for destructive purposes. It was therapeutic for them. A siren's song was a part of its very existence. Mikail's mother had sung him to sleep every night, and he could still remember some of the songs. Being only half siren weakened his innate ability, but he still loved to sing, and anyway, any unlucky sailor passing by when Booster sung would probably be safe unless the person at the helm liked men. Very unlikely circumstances, since from what Booster knew of humans they were essentially the opposite of merfolk when it came to gender equality. Literally opposite: mermaids were always dominant in merfolk society, while human men were apparently dominant in human society. Booster had yet to see a ship manned by human women, and if a ship was manned by a man who liked other men and came by just as Booster started singing, then the people on that ship had about as much luck as Booster had.

With (practically) no worry of actually destroying anything, Booster could safely sing his heart out until his throat hurt, and he felt the euphoria of the feeling of the song of the seas flowing through his veins and out into the salty ocean breeze.

He pulled himself up onto his favorite rock right off the shore, tucked his tail into a crook in the stone, and laid back, hands behind his head, soaking in the sun for a moment, warmth soaking into his golden tanned skin. Then he took one deep breath, filling his lungs, and began his song, letting his eyes drift shut as he began.

What came out of his mouth weren't words, by human definition. But It was a pure expression of emotion for sirens, loud clear notes that carried the lilting tunes of feelings. There was no clear rhyme or reason to the sounds, just Booster laying his soul bare in a way only other sirens could understand. He sang of waves and distant mountains he would never see, of castle spires and of loss, of lunacy and foolishness, of sadness and doubt, of the sun's rays and seafoam drifting aimlessly towards the shore, of places to rest and sleep and dream.

It was all cut short by the ear-splitting crack of wood against rocks. Booster's head whipped about frantically to see what was wrong, and his eyes set instantly on a strange blue-painted craft that had crashed into one of the rocks that scattered the water. One of the ones mostly underwater that people never seemed to noticed, and always slammed into). A few choice curse words drifted from the shipwreck that was beginning to sink into the water, then a face popped out of the bowels of the ship and-

What the shell?

The face was very distinctly a male one, and Booster flipped over and poked his head over the edge of his rock, peering through squinting eyes, still not believing it, at the _man_ in the slowly sinking boat. So that meant, if Booster was thinking this through correctly, that this man was-if Booster had to guess-completely and utterly gay. The truth was, Booster's call could only ever work on gay men. So obviously the only possible conclusion was that the man was as gay as Poseidon's left hand. That or Booster had gotten fresh water in his eyes and that was actually a girl.

"Aw, hecking heck, not again!"

Nope, definitely a guy.

A guy that seemed to be having trouble due to Booster's unintentional crashing of their-- boat? It was a weird boat, if it was one. Well, he could probably swim. Booster would leave him to it.

As the seconds passed it became more and more clear the man actually couldn't swim, as he scrambled to higher on the ship like his life depended on it, and the closer the water got the more he swore. Was this guy serious? He had piloted a ship out into the open ocean-- and couldn't swim? He was either incredibly stupid, incredibly brave, or both. Booster personally had both traits in spades, so it wasn't unlikely.

Finally the guy decided to woman up and jumped from the sinking ship into the water. His arms flailed about, keeping up only just well enough to grab onto a piece of the wreckage, and lay over top it, but it didn't look like he would be able to stay on long enough to drift to shore, the way he was kicking around like that. Booster groaned.

Deciding to save the poor idiot, he slid down the rock and into the water, letting it engulf him, took a deep breath through his gills, then sped off towards the wreck, a gold and tan streak just below the waves.

At full speed, he reached the ship in a matter of seconds and wove through the broken pieces of the ship floating in the water just in time to see the man slip off his makeshift raft. Booster's face paled and he dove downwards frantically. Time seemed to slow as Booster's arms wrapped around the man, fumbling to get a good grip on him, then pulled upwards with all his might, too worried suddenly to care about anything else but getting the man to the surface. Then, all at once, they were just above the water, Booster holding the man as well as possible in one arm so he could hold them both up better.

In that moment Booster finally got a good look at the man he had just saved. The man's dark brown hair was wet and plastered on his pale face, but, judging by the slight waviness, was curly when dry. A pair of circular blue goggles with yellow lenses lay over his shut eyes. The sun shone bright and clear, and it reflected off the lenses and gave them a golden glow. He wasn't exceptionally attractive, a middle aged man with a slowly but surely aging face who was just lucky to be gifted with hair that didn't whiten with age, but he also looked like a wreck now and Booster wasn't one to make any assumptions. There was also something about his face that made him look inherently good-natured, someone you would like to spend time with, someone you could trust. Laughter lines crossed his face; this was a man who had laughed much in his time. Through the man's completely soaked clothes, where Booster had no choice but to hold him, he could feel that the man was softening around the edges, fed well enough to start becoming susceptible to a lowering metabolism with age.

The man's eyes slid open slowly, and Booster was met with a pair of wide, mirthful orbs. Booster didn't even know their color, but he already thought they were beautiful eyes just by their character. The man squinted, blinked a couple times, then dawning realization crossed his face and the man very suddenly pushed Booster away and had gotten a ways away before remembering he was still in water and still couldn't swim, and started to wave his arms about wildly in an attempt to stay afloat. Booster groaned again and tried to grab the man.

"Calm down, you idiot! I'm trying to help you!," Booster hissed, even as the man started to lose his failing battle with the very ocean itself. He finally got an arm around him before he sunk below the water and pulled him fully above the waves again.

"How would I know that? What if you're a crazed murderer taking advantage of my drowning state? Or a cannibal?," he shouted hysterically, pushing against Booster again.

"Well its either me or a watery grave, so take your pick," Booster replied impatiently, and that seemed to shake the man out of whatever hysteria he had sunken into.

"So you're not eating me?," the man said suspiciously, his voice dropping back to a normal pitch. He squinted at Booster from behind his goggles, sizing Booster up, and the expressiveness of the man's face made the action almost comical.

"No, I'm not, unless you give me a reason to. I might be hungry enough to eat you just 'cause you're annoying."  
This was apparently the right response, because the man gave him a strange smile and murmured "okay, okay", clearly a fan of dry humor. Booster just blessed the gods and pulled the man to low water to set him down.

"Hey, hey! Don't drop me! I'm too young to-! Oh. Land." Then the man grinned from ear to ear and ran out of the water and onto the sand, eyes gleaming manically as he cried out, "Land! Glorious land!" and danced around, kicking up sand. Then the man slowed down and, remembering Booster's existence, he turned around. He had lost one of his shoes, but apparently he wasn't bothered by it judging by the massive grin on his face. _He has dimples_ , Booster thought passively.

"Why are you still in the water? Live there?"

This got a grin out of Booster. "In a way."

Booster had always been a fan of showing off, and this was no exception as he twisted about and moved into a roll under the water, his tail showing over the surface for a second, sun gleaming off the golden scales, before disappearing under the waves. When his face broke out from under the water again, the absolutely stunned look on the man's face was priceless. Then it changed to suspicion, and Booster shrunk back a little, the elation suddenly gone.

"Jesus, I knew I was on the right track when I thought you might eat me!"

"What?"

"You're a siren, aren't you!"  
Booster's face flushed.

"Only half! My mom was a siren." Booster replied, grinning sheepishly, his ear fins pressing against the side of his face unconciously, then instantly regretted the decision since the man must have seen his sharp canines. Damn it.

"Are you secretly a lady under there, then? 'Cause hey, strong ladies with low voices are totally- okay lets not go there, anyway-"

"What?" Okay, this conversation was so completely off course that Booster wasn't even sure if they had been on course in the first place. Wasn't this man gay, anyway?

"Aren't sirens sensual half ladies with long, flowing gorgeous hair and fish tails? I mean, your hair is shorter then I imagined, but it is definitely flowing and gorgeous," the man rambled, completely unashamed, and Booster rolled his eyes and snorted.

"Wowzers, thanks for the compliments, but I am in fact completely male, thanks for asking. But if you _need_ to see to understand that-," Booster replied, then made a show of pulling his upper half out of the water and for a moment savored the man's little squack of surprise and embarassment.

Booster swam up closer and pulled himself up so that his tail was in the water but his chest was over the sand, then levered himself up with his arm enough to more comfortably hold out his webbed hand to shake.

"The names Mikail Jonn Carteer, better known as Booster Goldfin. Just call me Booster or Boost, since we're all friends here."

\---

"So...the frilly gill-fin things on the side of your head, are they more for show or do they actually serve a purpose?," Ted asked, debliterately, trying to steer the conversation back on track after the merman started blocking all his merfolk question. It turned out this was the right choice, because Booster face screwed up before he lets out a snort that would be unattractive coming from anyone but this blonde-haired figure before him. Half-siren, Ted's ass.

"Of course they have a purpose, they're gills. Take a wild guess at what they do."

Ted hummed and hawed obnoxiously until Booster whacked him upside the head playfully. Ted stuck his tongue out at Booster.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"For being an obnoxious idiot."

"Look whose talking!"

"Hey!"

The two glared at each other for a solid two seconds before they broke down into laughter, unable to keep up the act. Then the laughs dissolved into giggles between breaths, and when they were actually able to breath again Ted spoke.

"Oh, man-" Ted said, took a ragged breath, wiped away a non-existant tear, got back to the topic, "But- honestly, I'm seriously curious, 'cause you've got the face fins, but then you also have gill slits on either side of your neck."

Booster gave one of those shining smiles full of teeth that sent a shiver down Ted's spine in a way that was entirely too pleasant.

"Yeah, its kinda weird to me too. They might be vestigial-"

"Wait, you actually know that word?"

"Shut up! Like I saying before you so rudely interrupted, they may be vestigial, leftover from our fish ancestory, or maybe they actually work as gills. I'm a mythological creature, mysteries are part of the deal."

Booster wiggled the little things, and Ted snorted loudly. It looked so silly coming from Booster, who must have taken some special underwater ab workout because Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, look at them, but Ted was quickly realizing how massive of a goofball Booster was. Ted had always imagined merfolk as either amazingly hot chicks with flowing hair or droll and boring very serious men, but Booster was something else entirely.

"Can I touch them?" The words left Ted's mouth before he realized he was saying them, but damn if he was going to back out of it. He'd said it, and he'd be a man about it.

Booster's fin wiggling stopped completely. In fact, Booster looked frozen in place there, his tail draped in the water, his upper half pulled up onto the sand next to Ted. Just as suddenly, Booster's entire face turned bright red and he gaped at Ted, his fins quivering. It was then Ted realized the massive fuck up that question was, damn his inexperience with merfolk.

"Oh hell, I just asked something really weird didn't I? God-" Ted started, cut off by Booster suddenly bursting into laughter, clutching his stomach as he laughed so loudly Ted was certain people in the next province could hear, and Ted's own face went red from a mix of embarrassment, anger, and the sound of Booster's breathy, low laughter ringing in Ted's ear.

"I- holy mackerel, Ted-ha-its fine! It totally cold-cool, whatever. Seriously, though, don't ask that again, if this was any other situation. Just a warning, ask any other merfolk if you can mess with their fins and they'll take it as flirting. Bad flirting, actually. So right up your trench, if you catch my drift."

"If that was just a bunch of bad ocean puns, I'm going to make like a wave and wave goodbye to you forever."

"Says you. You're the master of bad jokes, I'm just talking."

"So merfolk use bad fish puns in daily conversation?" Ted asked skeptically, trying to keep a straight face.

"And you use bad land puns," Booster retaliated.

"Point taken. So, why is the fin thing so bad?," Ted asked, switching gears again. Booster twiddled his fins and grinned lavisciously. There went that damn spine tingle again.

"These things are amazingly sensitive. Stroke them the right way, and you can get off just on-"

"Lalalalala not listening to the digusting dirty things coming out of your mouth!"

"-touching them. Calm down, wowzers, weren't you the one going on about your porn stash and your dream lady earlier?," Booster pointed out, and Ted stuck his tongue out at Booster again before dropping the hands covering his ears. "You can touch them, if your still up to it, though." And that suprised Ted.

"After what you just told me? That'd be like you accepting an invitation to touch my crotch," Ted said, his face bunched up in an exaggerated expression of disgust. Booster seemed to be in "I'm mister sexy and charming merman try to resist me" mode and grinned wolfishly at Ted, but something about Booster's expression also suggested he was also trying to not collapse in another laughing fit.

"Your loss," Booster said smoothly (or as smoothly as a dork of a half-fish man could be) and turned onto his side, bringing his whole tail flopping onto it's side in the most graceless motion possible, and did a mermaid approximation of a "draw me like one of your French girls" pose, and then had the _audacity_ to _wiggle his eyebrows_. That was Ted's breaking point; he couldn't handle it any more. He just had to laugh, letting out a "bwah-ha-ha" of mirth. Booster dropped the act instantly, still in the pose but more relaxed and grinning from ear to ear, eyes crinkling at the edges, and even more endearingly his ear fins were wiggling excitedly, like a dog's tail wagging.

Ted had never had a better time in his life on that day. Never in his life had he had someone he clicked with so instantly. Booster was very closed up at first, maybe a little too serious while trying to make a good impression, but he had opened up a little and Ted had liked him instantly. Sometimes he almost forgot the man was of the merfolk, a complete mystery and potentially dangerous considering all the stories of those lost to the cliffsides, lured by women with fish tails whose song brought them to their doom. Even more frightening were the graphic depictions of men being eaten by these deceptive beauties. But Booster hadn't so much as nibbled Ted yet, and Ted was already crashed, so he was probably completely safe with this lone merman. 

Their conversations continued on light notes, straying away from anything deep on Booster's side. In a moment of silence, Ted came to the realization he shouldn't be talking to this merfolk who laughed at all his jokes and had slightly wavy (ha!) blonde hair when it dried. He was shipwrecked, hungry, and needed to get back.

"Hey, Boosteroo-"

"Boosteroo?"

"I could call you guppy."

"Oh Poseidon, please no."

"Alright then, Boosteroo. The point is, I just realized we've been talking for what has got to be multiple hours, my ship is a wreck of a shipwreck, and I didn't bring any food, which is a problem. I'd eat you, but that'd be rude."

Booster snorted at that.

"--So if you could politely direct me towards the nearest township I'll have to get on my way."

For a fraction of a second Booster's expression looked so infinitely heartbroken, he looked like a lost puppy Ted wanted to take home with him, but the next moment Booster had schooled his expression into that gleaming grin that made him look like a politician or a peddler trying to sell his goods--it was completely fake. He did it so quickly Ted could have blinked and missed it.

"Got it, Ted. You've gotta be swimming along to home," Booster said, then flopped onto his back and yawned overdramatically, "And I could go home and catch a few winks myself."

A hint of that hidden sadness seeped into Booster voice that Ted only caught because he was listening for it. This, Ted could not endure.

"Hey, ol' guppy, I'm not leaving forever. In fact, we could meet up here tomorrow, and this time-" Ted sweeped a hand over the shipwreck behind him. "-I'll bring an invention that doesn't make me look like an idiot."

That was when the genuine smile returned, warm and earnest, and Ted felt like he could melt from the warmth of Booster's honest smiles.

"That would- that would be totally zapping," Booster finally said, that eye-crinkling, blinding grin on his face, "Teddy, ol' buddy, here are the complete and completely honest directions to a wonderful seaside town--trust me, would I ever steer you wrong?"

"Actually-"

"Don't answer that."

"Wasn't planning on it."

\---

Mikail watched Ted's silhouette as it moved further away, becoming a speck on the wide and long expanse of beach, and let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, well-faked expression deteriorating. He raised a hand to rub his eyes tiredly, then slid himself back fully into the water. His gills filled, and he breathed in raggedly. He'd never spent that much time on the surface. His body could handle it, but he was much better equipped to breath underwater. He hadn't told Ted anything about that, though.  
That reminded him, he would have to do something about that boat Ted had crashed. If any of the other patrols saw it they'd definitely report it and cause a raucous, but it was also Ted's and Mikail had a feeling Ted would probably bring something to take it back later so Mikail couldn't just drag it away and throw it away. He was getting a headache now.

Maybe no one would see it. _Yeah, right, and maybe the Grand High Mages can give you a brain, Mikail. Gimme a break._

But Booster was tired beyond belief, and if he didn't sleep he'd collapse during his next shift, and, with his mind moving sluggishly, he decided that it would be alright, and started to make his way back to his home in Atlantis, ready to dream of mistakes and loss and Theodore Kord's smile, warm like the sun, and his blue eyes, bright like the dappled light that shone through calm tropical waters to the ocean floor.


End file.
